Zambia: The Mixed Legacy of Frederick Chiluba

The Citizen (Dar es Salaam)

Mobhare Matinyi

30 June 2011

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On June 18, the second president of the Republic of Zambia, Frederick Chiluba, 68, died of heart complications that had been troubling him for a while since he retired from his historic presidency, which was marked by political and economic reforms but also marred by arrogance and thefts. Chiluba came to power in 1991 after a long struggle that took him to jail a couple of times and exposed him to harassment by police. His actual victory may not have been as remarkable as the style, pomp and the manner in which he ousted the over-confident President Kenneth Kaunda.

A few weeks ago I discussed how in 1991 Mr Chiluba and his newly registered political party, the Movement for Multiparty Democracy (MMD), shocked Africa when they grabbed 125 seats out of 150 in the Parliament, with Chiluba himself garnering over 80 per cent of the presidential vote in the midst of the state machinery. No doubt it was a historic election, and Dr Kaunda had no choice but to leave office, as Zambians had already shown how resolute they were to face anybody standing between them and the new hope that the charismatic and charming opposition politician Chiluba had preached to them. Mr Chiluba changed Zambia forever.

With too much optimism, Zambians waited to see what the uneducated trade unionist would do to pull them out of abject poverty. Although Chiluba at first believed in socialism, the economic situation forced him to take the opposite course so as to rescue the economy; he therefore immediately untangled Zambians from the state-controlled economy.

Interestingly, he didn’t want to sit at the same table with the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) economists who were flying all over Africa prescribing special pills called “economic restructuring programmes.” Chiluba stood by his own principles, didn’t even listen to critical Zambian economists, and as such people are not sure to this day if his economic reforms helped Zambia.

On the side, while Zambians were dreaming about a “new” Zambia, Chiluba was busy buying glamorous suits and ordering shoes with two-inch heels to compensate for his short height, stealing millions of dollars in collaboration with his former intelligence chief, Xavier Chungu, buying presents for ladies, and strategizing about how to stop Dr Kaunda from coming back to power in the 1996 election.

To completely knock down Dr. Kaunda, Chiluba had the constitution amended, barring citizens with foreign parentage from running for the presidency. He even went so far as to try to deport Dr Kaunda, claiming that he wasn’t a Zambian by law since his father came from Malawi. For his part, Dr Kaunda famously called Chiluba a “Four-foot Dwarf” and forever regretted allowing him to ascend to power. But the amendment almost also stopped Chiluba from running when his opponents claimed that his father was Congolese.

Then came a bombshell in 1997, when Chiluba alleged that Dr Kaunda was planning to overthrow him and ordered his arrest, while reminding people that Dr Kaunda was not a retired president but a defeated president. Mwalimu Julius Nyerere, then a retired president of the United Republic of Tanzania, flew to Lusaka, spoke to Mr Chiluba, and went to the Lusaka main prison to bring the unshaven Kaunda back to freedom.

As expected, close to the end of his presidency in 2001, Chiluba started shopping around for the possibility of amending the constitution to allow him a third term, but no one supported him. He therefore left office in January, 2002, and his onetime Vice President, Levy Mwanawasa, won election. President Mwanawasa’s government wasted no time in bringing Chiluba and his buddies to court, charging them with 168 counts of theft totaling about $40 million. Unexpectedly, Chiluba found himself spending most of his retirement time either rushing to the hospital for his heart ailment or responding to the High Court summons.

In 2007 Mr Chiluba was embarrassed when a British court found him guilty in a civil suit of stealing $46 million, and even ordered him to get out of his house in Lusaka because it was bought with stolen money. His second wife, Regina, consequently got into trouble for receiving part of the stolen money. Chiluba’s defence was short and simple: President Mwanawasa was the problem.

When Mwanawasa died of a stroke in May, 2008 in Paris, the then-Vice President, Rupiah Banda, assumed power, and that’s when Chiluba got some relief. Somehow, government prosecutors were no longer interested in his remaining cases. To thank President Banda, Chiluba in 2010 told Zambians to elect Banda in the 2011 election, prompting a joke from Transparency International that Chiluba was campaigning for his freedom.

That’s Chiluba, the man whom Roy Clarke of The Post of Zambia, repeatedly described back then as “a vain, cross-dressing, high-heel wearing, adulterous, dwarf thief.” Chiluba’s legacy remains mixed by any standards.

The writer is a consultant based in Washington, DC

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